Lavidor, M.;
Walsh, V.;
(2003)
A magnetic stimulation examination of orthographic neighborhood effects in visual word recognition.
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience
, 15
(3)
354 -363.
10.1162/089892903321593081.
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Abstract
The split-fovea theory proposes that visual word recognition is mediated by the splitting of the foveal image, with letters to the left of fixation projected to the right hemisphere (RH) and letters to the right of fixation projected to the left hemisphere (LH). We applied repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) over the left and right occipital cortex during a lexical decision task to investigate the extent to which word recognition processes could be accounted for according to the split-fovea theory. Unilateral rTMS significantly impaired lexical decision latencies to centrally presented words, supporting the suggestion that foveal representation of words is split between the cerebral hemispheres rather than bilateral. Behaviorally, we showed that words that have many orthographic neighbors sharing the same initial letters ("lead neighbors") facilitated lexical decision more than words with few lead neighbors. This effect did not apply to end neighbors (orthographic neighbors sharing the same final letters). Crucially, rTMS over the RH impaired lead-, but not end-neighborhood facilitation. The results support the split-fovea theory, where the RH has primacy in representing lead neighbors of a written word.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | A magnetic stimulation examination of orthographic neighborhood effects in visual word recognition |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1162/089892903321593081 |
| Publisher version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1162/089892903321593081 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | copyright 2003 Massachusetts Institute of Technology. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. The license allows you to copy, distribute, and transmit the work, as well as adapting it. However, you must attribute the work to the author (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work), and cannot use the work for commercial purposes without prior permission of the author. If you alter or build upon this work, you can distribute the resulting work only under the same or similar license to this one. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 444 Castro Street, Suite 900, Mountain View, California, 94041, USA. |
| Keywords: | Split fovea, Nasotemporal overlap, Visual word recognition, Transcranial magnetic stimulation, Occipital cortex |
| UCL classification: | UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences > Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/3750 |
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